The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

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Where I Stand on Kavanaugh

As I acquire new information about Christine Blasey Ford’s porous and perjurious memory, I will add links at the bottom of this post.

The cold civil war that rages in America became a bit hotter on September 27, 2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh bared his righteous outrage and dared to attack the Democrats who are hypocritically attacking him. Hypocritically? Yes, because Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Keith Ellison (among many others) have been spared the wrath of Democrats for having committed acts during their adulthood that are far better documented than the charges leveled against Judge Kavanaugh.

Now, Kavanaugh is under attack for having bared his outrage. As if he were not entitled to outrage because, after all, “women must be believed”. There’s a syllogism in there somewhere. It probably goes like this:

Women never lie.

Christine Blasey Ford is a women.

Therefore, Christine Blasey Ford isn’t lying.

That’s a logically valid statement. But, as any respectable professor of logic would tell you, a logically valid statement isn’t necessarily a true statement. The truth of a logically valid statement depends on the truth of its premises. The major premise — women never lie — is prima facie untrue. “Women must be believed” doesn’t passthe smell test.

That’s not to say that sexual assault doesn’t happen. It does, and it should be reported to the police and investigated by the police — as soon as possible after it happens.

Nor do I rule out the possibility that something like the events retailed by CBF happened in 1982. Though there is vast room for doubt given the vagueness and lateness of CBF’s recovered memory, and the lack (thus far) of corroboration by persons she has named as participants in the “party” where she was purportedly attacked. UPDATE: CBF may soon join the ranks of exposed hoaxers. See this.

If (most of) the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee accept Kavanaugh’s denial of CBF’s allegation, it is only because the Democrats on the committee are bent on convicting Kavanaugh on the flimsiest of evidence, so as to deny the “conservative wing” of the Court a majority.. This is another battle in the cold civil war, which is about control of government and, ultimately, control of our lives. The Republicans, for all of their many faults, are on the side of liberty. The Democrats, for all of their much worse faults, are on the side of oppression. That’s what it comes down to.

In any event, with respect to CBF’s allegation, what is the worst-case scenario? It is that Kavanaugh — as a 17-year-old — did something in a drunken state that he would not have done when sober. What does that have to do with his qualifications for sitting on the Supreme Court if, as seems to be the case, he has never come close to doing something similar in the ensuing 36 years, drunk or sober?

a lot of people in positions of high authority are not very nice at all. Some of the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee make me want a long, hot shower after listening to them. I care about the environment, so I don’t listen to them. Some of the judges I have known were frankly a**holes, always jockeying for political advantage and not caring deeply about the law. Indeed, we seem to have entered an era in which few people care deeply about the law, attributable mostly it seems to me, and ironically, to law professors. Judge K seems ambitious but to at least care about the law.

In politics, you reach a point, usually near the beginning but almost always by the end, where you have to choose the greater good or the lesser evil. That’s where we are with Judge K. It’s possible he did sexually assault Ford long ago and does not remember it or half-remembers it now. It’s possible Ford has confabulated her memory of this possibly fictional incident. Lots of things are possible. Few lives, except mine of course, could stand up to the sort of hyperpartisan de- and reconstruction that K’s has been subject to. K seems to have been clean as a whistle since at least his graduation from law school. If he was something of a frat boy aggressor while drunk against young women, he seems to have gotten over that a long time ago, if indeed he actually had anything to get over. And yes, I realize this tags me as one of those old white guys who does not think it’s practical to dredge up 30+ year old accusations against an otherwise outstanding-seeming judge in a hyper-political context.

Here’s the bottom line:

But just hypothetically [emphasis added], whom would you choose: a guy who was perhaps, maybe, based on far from ideal memories from 30+ years ago, a heavy drinker and sexual assaulter, but who would uphold the basic structure of the republic, versus another Sotomayor, who is arguendo personally morally upstanding, but who would gnaw obsessively at the pilings under-girding our form of government? Given the choice, I know what I would do.

Comments & Correspondence

Comments close 30 days after the publication of a post. If a post is no longer open for comment, or if you prefer to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

If you submit a comment or suggestion by e-mail, I may acknowledge it or use it on this blog. But I may paraphrase what you say or edit it for the sake of concision, clarity, coherence, or brevity. I will not use your name unless you specifically authorize me to do so. Even then, I will put quotation marks around your name unless I am certain of your identity.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.